With a transmission electron microscope, etc., an image pickup device, incorporating a charge reading part (referred to hereinafter as “CCD reading part”) that comprises a charge coupled device, is applied as a means of observing and recording electron beam images. Since a CCD reading part can record images as electronic information, image pickup devices, incorporating such CCD reading parts, have become widely popular in recent years.
As an example of such a conventional image pickup device, the image pickup device described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-324400 is known. As shown in FIG. 1, this image pickup device is equipped with a scintillator 107, a semiconductor substrate 109, a fiber optic plate 108 (referred to hereinafter as “FOP”), a CCD reading part control part 110, a computer 111, etc. The scintillator 107 emits light when illuminated by an electron beam. The semiconductor substrate 109 is positioned below scintillator 107 and has a CCD reading part for picking up a two-dimensional optical image. The FOP 108 is positioned between scintillator 107 and semiconductor substrate 109 and is optically coupled to semiconductor substrate 109 in order to carry an optical image to semiconductor substrate 109. The CCD reading part control part 110 controls a CCD reading part. The computer 111 converts image pickup data, taken in by the CCD reading part, into an image and displays the image resulting from conversion.
In FIG. 1, 101 is an electron gun, 102 is an irradiation lens system, 103 is a sample, 104 and 105 indicate an objective lens system, 106 is a fluorescent plate, 112 is an electron beam shielding plate, 115a and 115b are electron beam shielding means, and 200 is an electron beam image pickup device, arranged from FOP 108 and semiconductor substrate 109.